by David Scoles
Almost casually Hugo threw his dagger, the blade finding her heart and dropping Emayn to the ground like a deflated sack of air. As one, Emayn’s four sons took to the woods in flight. Fear overran any quest for vengeance. It was to be expected from such lowly scum. Only the little boy with the filth streaked face bore witness to what happened next, for Gwilym still fought for consciousness.
Hugo moved first. His Paramerion was a slashing blade and it moved like lightning in his expert grip cutting from left to right. Radu didn’t bother parrying, but instead leapt back and drew Hugo closer to him. Hugo followed up his swing by slashing again from right to left aiming for Radu’s side. Radu twirled the fokos ax in his left hand and Hugo’s eyes followed it. This was a maneuver Radu often used as a distraction and once again it worked. His arming blade thrust down aiming for a cut at Hugo’s left shoulder, but Hugo quickly leapt to the right.
Both men circled one another taking each other’s measure, each searching for an opening. Hugo’s blood was already up from his questioning of Gwilym and his face bore a wide grin as blood thundered in his temples. Radu on the other hand had walked a long time through difficult forest, eaten little and his eyes were not yet used to the firelight that was this dark forest’s only source of light. No moon was visible through the thick canopy of trees above.
Radu had often channeled anger into his fighting, relying upon surges of strength to overpower his opponents. Yet he recognized in Hugo someone who would not be overpowered by strength alone. Radu knew that he probably did not have as much fighting experience as the older Hugo did. No matter, he had fought older and wiser opponents before and triumphed, but this could be a near thing. Hugo was no slouch with that blade and his height and reach slightly outdid Radu’s own. This fight would be won on finesse, patience and more than a little luck. Fortunately, Radu had learned to make his own luck.
Radu brought both the fokos and his arming blade up in an X shaped guard before him and began circling to the left. Hugo’s eyes narrowed and he adopted a more traditional stance: Paramerion held in his hand and thrust forward, right leg forward and left leg back. This way Hugo would be ready to spring forward to attack or backpedal to defend. He didn’t know what Radu was up to and that unnerved him slightly.
“Your companion over there bleeds well,” Hugo said, his French guttural, but clear enough to Radu’s ears. “What do you make of all this, hmm?” Hugo gestured about the scole. “Men like us, strong men with the means to take whatever we want when we want and yet forced to skulk in such places. Does it not unbalance your humours that it was the unworthy and the weak who put us both into a situation where one of us must kill the other? Or do you even care as long as your purse is filled?”
Hugo tested Radu’s guard with a low slash that cut upwards diagonally. There was no real target. Radu deflected the blade as Hugo expected, creating an opening at Radu’s stomach, which Hugo exploited with a vicious kick that drove the mercenary back.
Radu’s face indicated no discomfort or pain at the kick. The sudden flare of rage in his eyes told Hugo all he needed to know and he prepared for a furious attack he would defend. It never came. Radu continued to circle left as if the kick had never happened, his weapons held their X pattern position. Hugo growled in frustration.
“Those men out there,” Hugo snarled. “Those kings and lords and bishops and lawyers… they are in charge of our fate, do you not see? Men like that are accepted as to rule us!? How can such a thing be and how can it be allowed to stand?” Hugo cut again, fast and furious, but again Radu parried it away.
“Laws grow from the seeds of weakness! They are a denial of what men must do to survive.” Hugo darted forward and put to good use his superior height. He leapt into the air and drove his sword down like a spear.
Radu blocked the strike, but all of Hugo’s weight was behind the blade and Radu was driven down to one knee. For what seemed an eternity, both men were locked in a test of brute strength. Radu bared his teeth from behind his crossed weapons. Hugo’s own face was strained. Both men had sweat freely running down their faces and neither seemed ready to make the next move, but Hugo found himself steadily becoming more and more concerned. The raw determination this mercenary displayed was unnerving.
“Let us burn it all down together!” Hugo gasped. He rocked back a step after he finally broke the stalemate. He brought his sword up into a guard position and finally Radu broke his own guard. This time he stood with his sword prepped to parry and the ax ready to swing. Hugo wondered how he might solidly win victory even as he tried to talk Radu down.
“Imagine if the current order fell: Church, Nobility and Royalty reduced to ash. People like us will forge the future. If not now, then most certainly someday. People like us should not bow down to the rule of those who believe this world could ever be anything more than the living Hell it is!”
Spittle flecked about Hugo’s mouth like a rabid dog and his hoarseness grew ever more pronounced as he ranted. His eyes were wide and glassy. Radu had seen this before. A battle rage descended upon Hugo the Long, the same sort of madness that had likely allowed him to overcome and kill a reeve and all his men during his failed hanging.
“They treat us like scum!” Hugo spat. “As if being shat from a High Lady’s perfumed hole makes a man greater than one who has dragged himself through sleet to push a plow over frozen ground. All so that he might feed his starving children!” Hugo shrieked in rage and brought the paramerion across in a chest slash that Radu batted aside with the fokos. Radu thrust his sword forward like a lance. It was a feint.
Radu allowed the sword to fall away even as Hugo smashed it away with a cry of rage and took hold of his fokos with both hands. Radu spun to the left in a half-circle and ducked under Hugo’s swing still spinning. Then he rose to his full height and planted his feet and swung the fokos with all his might. It connected with Hugo’s back between his shoulder blades with a wet thunk. Both men froze. An instant later Radu ripped the ax free and Hugo fell to the ground with an agonized cry.
Hugo vomited a mixture of blood and bile onto the ground where he lay. Hugo knew instinctively the wound was mortal. Hate was a fist in his stomach even as his life poured from the wound in his back. He could no longer feel his legs and neither his arms nor hands responded to his commands. He could only lay there paralyzed gasping out his last. So be it.
“May you find what you seek Radu the Black,” Hugo sneered. “A deeper, more permanent Hell awaits you.” Hugo the Long expired, his purple tongue lolled from his mouth grotesquely. Radu spared him no more thought, and instead strode to where Gwilym lay unmoving upon the ground.
“Gwilym?” Radu shook him gently.
“Untie me, please,” Gwilym croaked. His face was a mess of blood and dirt. Radu who had suffered wounds both light and serious, recognized after a cursory examination that most of Gwilym’s wounds were not life-threatening. The stab wound in the hand was the most serious, but was nothing some sheep-gut and a needle would not fix.
“Also, my compliments on slaying that bastard,” Gwilym added after Radu sat him up and sliced through the ropes binding his hands. He winced as feeling slowly returned to his hands and held the wounded one close to his chest. He looked up at Radu’s usual stony face and was surprised to see a smile there. “What are you grinning at?” Gwilym demanded.
“I am pleased you are not dead, minstrel.” Gwilym squinted up at him, but found only sincerity. “I will sew your wounds after I collect the head.”
“Ah, of course.” Gwilym didn’t even flinch when Radu’s blade came chopping down and Hugo’s head fell away, rolled twice and landed face up staring at him. “How does your throat feel now Hugo?” With that, Gwilym fell into the hysterical laughter that only comes from barely escaping death. After that, Gwilym performed a full minute of the most inventive and heartfelt curses he could think of upon Hugo’s soul before he sank onto his back and passed out.
Chapter 8
When Gwilym awoke it was due
to being handled by something cold and clammy. In that strange state between sleep and wakefulness, Gwilym imagined he was pawed at by the headless bodies of Vladimir Kessenovich and Hugo the Long. He groaned and his arms flailed at the dismembered specters in his dream. When his eyes fluttered open and he was able to focus on what was happening he gave a startled cry. It was the careworn face of Emayn the Crone who glared back.
“He lives, devil. The wounds are clean and well sewed.” Her voice dripped bitterness and spite.
“I saw you die!” Gwilym gaped at her. Emayn snorted and held up a book bound in leather that bore a large, knifelike hole.
“The Book of the Two Principles,” Gwilym read, squinting at the time faded ink.
“I carry it close to my heart,” Emayn stated with satisfaction. “A book that the Church refutes as heresy and burns wherever it is found along with whoever holds it. I have kept it hidden for many years and now it saves me yet again. Ha! The Lord does indeed possess a sense of irony.”
Gwilym looked over and saw Radu who nodded towards the small group of horses tied up near the huge tree. Gwilym was exhausted, filthy and could eat an entire ox, but he had no desire to remain in this horrid place a moment longer. He saw the small, bloody sack near Radu’s feet that carried the head of Hugo the Long.
“I think I am ready to return to the King’s host now,” Gwilym groaned emphatically. He would beg the Lord Warwick use of his tub in exchange for a poem or two and forget this day had ever happened.
“I thank you for binding my wounds, old one. A shame your sons ran off and left you to rot and all that,” Gwilym said as he stood up, wobbly at first, but then with greater confidence.
Emayn hobbled away and muttered to herself about ‘doomed ventures’ and ‘pointless wars.’ Radu saddled two horses. He’d taken Hugo’s former mount for his own and, surprisingly, tossed a few silver groats in front of Emayn for the nag he took from her.
“There’s extra there for you to bury him or dump him in the river,” Radu said to her as he mounted. He gestured to Gwilym then at the nag beside him, indicating that Gwilym should move a little faster. Gwilym groaned, but limped over to the horse and somehow hauled himself atop it without breaking any stitches.
“Why did you help him?” Gwilym called after Emayn. “Why aid those who do such evil?”
“God created them to be evil,” Emayn said sullenly without turning around. “Did not God create his angels imperfectly with perfect intent as God is Perfect? So too did God create Man both Good and Evil.” Emayn glared at Radu in defiance. He ignored her as he inspected Hugo the Long’s former saddlebags for the chattels that were now his.
Nearby the naked boy continued to stir his pot and ignored them all as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Emayn fixed her cloudy eyes upon Gwilym. For the rest of his life, Gwilym would remember her words.
“God wants both Good and Evil, because it is only through struggle that we can prove we love him. By seeking to earn God’s love man proves he is Good. By exploiting the free will God grants us, we sink into Evil.” Emayn smiled wickedly. “That is why God does not care who lives or who dies, who praises him or curses him. It was his plan all along that the world should suffer. Why should the Nachzehrer not have his way?”
“You are mad,” Gwilym spat at her angrily and with that he dug his heels into his horse’s side and bounded towards the horse path. Emayn cackled all the louder behind him. The sound followed him even after they were miles away.
Chapter 9
Dafydd ap Gwilym and Radu the Black found fortune then in the form of King Edward’s army. Tired, hungry and pursued by greater numbers of the French chevaliers, they had taken over the town of Acheux early on the morning of August 24. Fires were started and exhausted Irish, Welsh and English soldiers with their mercenary allies wearily made camp where they could. Nobility claimed what few structures there were, and found most unoccupied, yet still warm from hastily departed owners.
The town itself had emptied before they arrived. Alerted to the approaching foreign hosts, only those who truly had a stake in the town’s meager existence remained: whores and their whoremongers, a few merchants, a miller who held the local record for being drunk an entire month straight including that day and an inn full of Red Sword mercenary corpses. Those bodies were searched and relieved of any valuables, then dragged away for hasty burial.
“We cannot remain here long. Have you mentioned it to him?” Sir John Chandos remarked as he kept pace with Sir Richard Talbot. Both men were still dressed for battle but, like many of the soldiers who had come this far into France, they were dirty. A film of mud obscured much of the men’s fine armor.
“He knows,” Sir Talbot responded curtly. Talbot couldn’t help but like the fiery Chandos, but he’d always felt put off by the man’s close friendship with the Prince. His lack of noble birth made his familiarity with which he addressed men who should have been his betters difficult to accept. “Have you made your case to the Prince about returning to England?”
“Several times,” Sir Chandos sighed. “The Prince has held firm to the belief that the King and Lord Warwick will somehow save the campaign from being a complete disaster!” Sir Chandos spat and let out an exasperated sigh. Sir Talbot snorted and shook his head.
King and Heir both had their own entourages of nobles about them and there was vigorous competition within both for favor and position. Rarely did the two sides meet in friendship regardless of how well father and son publicly acted together. Old vs young perhaps, but also dynastic wealth vs newer wealth. Only Sir Talbot and Sir Chandos breached this etiquette and often conversed with one another. This was because there was one topic of conversation that both wholeheartedly agreed upon: this war could not be won.
“I would see us turn to Calais,” Sir Talbot growled, an opinion he voiced often. “From there we can open a steady supply line to the coastal ports of Dover. A siege there is winnable, but only if we cease this foolish notion of taking Paris!” Talbot turned and gazed at the only Inn in Acheux from where they stood across the narrow dirt lane. Several mercenary corpses had apparently been found there by the forward scouts and the smell of blood was toxic to anyone who did not pursue the gravedigger arts.
“Caen was a fiasco,” Sir Chandos whispered bitterly. “Did you hear the tally for the common dead? Thousands they are saying.” Sir Chandos looked Sir Talbot straight in the eye. “It should not have been this way. I almost feel as if we are being… manipulated into this primitive barbarism and have forgotten that which justifies our cause here.” Sir Talbot nodded in agreement.
“These fucking mercenaries. The King should have had that German shit Abelard beheaded rather than terminating their contract. They soil our honor and will bring a Papal vengeance upon us yet, mark me.”
Sir Chandos inclined his head towards one of the vacated houses and strode towards it meaningfully. Sir Talbot walked quickly behind him. It was a simple home: dirt floor, wooden tables and chairs, but a solid wattle and daub roof. Chandos shut the door behind Talbot, then turned with a serious expression written across his face.
“I wasn’t speaking about the mercenaries. Their numbers are an unfortunate necessity against a vastly superior force.”
“You speak about our own leaders?” Talbot whispered. They were both alone in the house, but both knew talk like this could find its way to unfriendly ears easily enough. “Speak your mind, John.”
“I suspect Lord Northampton pushes the Prince hard for future position,” Sir Chandos stated hesitantly. How he hated speaking words behind another’s back! It was always an ill-fated enterprise or so his father had told him long ago.
“Ha! Speak your mind on that one. That man of his, what was his name? Sir Boeth? By God that hairless bastard unnerves me a bit! The way he says little but glares all the time.” Sir Chandos nodded. Both Lord Northampton and Sir Boeth had lately been too close to the Prince for comfort.
“Lords Warwick and Northampton seek to recti
fy their failure at Caen. Lord Dorset, the Earl of Stratford, de Mohun, Courtenay and even young Roger Mortimer circle about with all the rest of them Talbot.” Chandos sighed and leaned against the doorframe. His eyes found a crack in the door by which he could look out into the street busy with English soldiers helping themselves to whatever they wished and occasionally scuffling with one another over this or that slight.
“I feel as though we are being drawn towards something. There is a plot beneath the surface of this war for a crown. The King may be guided by his bitterness towards King Philip and the Prince burns with an ambition that unsettles my humours, and yet….”
“That does not spill blood nor gold to such grand extent,” Sir Talbot finished with a nod of his head. “Someone has been burning villages just beyond the reach of our scouts. At first we suspected it was just French soldiers burning their fields against our coming further east, but entire villages?” Sir Talbot shook his head.
“We are being blamed, I do not doubt.” Sir Chandos said quietly.
“Oh, yes. A priest survived one of the villages, but it is clear the man had gone mad.”
“Oh?”
“Aye, he ranted about how he saw Lucifer riding a black horse slaughtering women and children. Said he saw horns growing out of the rider’s head!” Sir Talbot chuckled, but Sir Chandos could hear the nervousness echoed in that false laughter. Sir Talbot, for all his coarseness, was a true believer in Heaven and Hell.
“More rogue mercenaries perhaps,” Sir Chandos offered.
“Yes, but in whose employ? Peasants, Priests, You and I understand our place in this world, but mercenaries? They follow their own whims. Conscience and honor are as chattels to be purchased or cast aside!”
Neither man spoke for a time. Sir Chandos continued to watch the goings on outside while Sir Talbot mulled over their predicament. Sir Chandos spoke first.
“Ultimately, we can do nothing as long as the French continue to pursue us into a corner and we can find no ford across the Somme. The victory at Boismont was but a temporary reprieve.”